MM Dark Messiah - Impressions

It uses the Source engine, but the first issue that I ran into (and almost quit playing because of it) was the jittery framerate, slow loading, and periodic bringing of my machine to it's knees. I looked in the forums and found out this was caused by having the texture setting on high (which the auto-detect recommended). Big textures are for people with 512 on their video cards, or possibly people with 2gigs of RAM.

After changing that setting, MM runs smooth (with the exception of some of the more detailed areas, like the ship). It looks real pretty, too (like Latro). I love how the orc temple looks.

Gameplay is great for a Fantasy FPS. You can choose where to spend points, like on the bow, the sword, magic, physical attributes for stealth or strength or increased mana. As you get better, you can do better moves with the sword or cast cooler spells (not a wide variety there, though). The fighting is satisfactory for me ... it's similar to Jedi Knight mixed with Oblivion, but it works well. You can choose between weapons like staffs, swords, or daggers, and that adds variety as well.

In some parts of the game, if you've collected metal, you can forge your own weapon. It's not very customized, but it's still a neat feature to add something. This game is a lot about little details and fun asides that make it that much more fun to play through. (For instance, I was surprised when an orc picked me up by the throat and threw me off a roof, and it looked really cool from the POV I had of it). There's always environment situations you can use to your advantage, like kicking an enemy off a roof, or into spikes, or a fire, etc. Or you can make supports break and fall on top of enemies, or cut ropes and set off traps. It makes good use of the physics engine that way.

The storyline is standard Fantasy, except it adds some intrigue with the possible evil motives of your mentor and the (apparent) succubus in your head.

Rune was a good game, but this one is better. I think MM is the best Action Fantasy game I've ever played. I like that there are multiple paths to choose and ways to approach situations, plus the neat little details and fun sidetracks (like running across the rooftops after the ghoul). The multiplayer aspect I didn't take much time to try out ... there were 2 servers total. Could be cool, though.

Unless something changes, this is going to be one of my Games of the Year.

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